Louisiana

Louisiana
is a southern state of the United
States of America. It uses the U.S. postal abbreviation LA. The
state is bordered to the west by the state of Texas,
to the north by Arkansas,
to the east by the state of Mississippi,
and to the south by the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana's two official languages
are English and French.

History

Louisiana
was long inhabited by Native American tribes before the arrival of Europeans.
The lasting mark of the Native Americans can be seen even today in the
names used in Louisiana,
such as Atchafalaya, Natchitouches (now spelled Natchitoches), Caddo,
Houma, Tangipahoa, and Avoyel (Avoyelles Parish). What follows is a
partial list, using current parish boundaries as rough approximations
of locations.

The Atakapa were
found in southwestern Louisiana
in the parishes of Vermilion, Cameron, Lafayette, Acadia, Jefferson
Davis, and Calcasieu.

The Chitimachas
occupied the southeastern parishes of Iberia, Assumption, St Mary,
Lower St. Martin, Terrebone, LaFourche, St. James, St. John the Baptist,
St. Charles, Jefferson, Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines.

The Bayougoula,
part of the Choctaw nation, were found in points directly north of
the Chitimachas, in the parishes of St. Helena, Tangipahoa, Washington,
East and West Baton Rouge, Livingston, and St. Tammany.

The Houma tribe,
was found in East and West Feliciana, and Pointe Coupee parishes;
Ironically about 100 miles north of current location of the town named
after them.

Portions of Avoyelles
and Concordia parishes along the Mississippi River were home to the
Avoyel, part of the Natchez nation.

The northeastern
parishes of Tensas, Madison, and East and West Carroll were occupied
by the Tunica tribe.

The remainder
of current day central and north Louisiana
was home to a substantial portion of the Caddo nation.

The first European
explorers to visit what is now Louisiana
was a Spanish expedition in 1528 led by Panfilo de Navaez which located
the mouth of the Mississippi River. Some 13 years later Hernando de
Soto's expedition crossed through the region. Thereafter the region
was long neglected by the Spanish authorities, and the next explorers
were French. Louisiana was
named by the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle in honour of
Louis XIV in 1682. The first permanent settlement was founded by Pierre
Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699.

The French colony
of Louisiana originally claimed a great region of land on both sides
of the Mississippi River and north to Canada. Most of the settlement
concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries,
with trading outposts and mission settlements in the Illinois Country,
as far north as Peoria, Illinois and a
number of settlements in the area around near present-day Saint
Louis, Missouri.

Most of the territory
to the east of the Mississippi was lost to Great Britain in the French
and Indian War, except for the area around New
Orleans and the parishes around Lake Pontchartrain. The rest of
Louisiana became a colony
of Spain by the Treaty of Fountainebleau of 1762.

In 1800 France's
Napoleon Bonaparte re-acquired Louisiana
from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso, although this was kept secret
for some two years.

The U.S. divided
the newly acquired land into two territories: the Orleans Territory
(which became the state of Louisiana
in 1812) and the District of Louisiana (which consisted of all the land
not included in Orleans Territory). The Florida Parishes are annexed
from Spanish West Florida by proclamation of President James Madison
in 1810. The western boundary of Louisiana
with Spanish Texas remains disputed until the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819,
with the Sabine Free State serving as a neutral buffer zone as well
as a haven for criminals.

There are still
remnants of its former status as a possession of France, including:
the use of a civil law legal system, the Napoleonic Code (like France,
and unlike the rest of the United
States, which uses a common law legal system derived from England),
the term "parishes" being used to describe the state's sub-divisions
as opposed to "counties", French as an official language (the only state
that has French as an official language), etc.

In the American
Civil War Louisiana seceded
from the Union on January 26, 1861. New
Orleans was captured by Federal troops on April 25, 1862. As some
portion of the population had Union sympathies, unusually the portions
of Lousiana under Federal control were recognized as a state within
the Union and elected representatives who were sent to the congress
in Washington,
D.C. through the rest of the war.

The ancestors
of Creoles generally came to Louisiana
directly from France or from the French colonies in the Caribbean
and settled in New
Orleans or in South Eastern Louisiana.

The ancestors
of the Cajuns are the Acadians, a French-descended people of what
are now New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada. When the British won
the French and Indian War, the British forced all of the citizens
to take a pledge of allegiance. Most Acadians declined and emigrated
from Canada, most of them fleeing to the South Western portion of
Louisiana, centered in
the region around Lafayette.

For almost 20 years
there was only one amusement park in Louisiana,
and it was called Hamel's Amusement Park.

Government

The capital of Louisiana
is Baton Rouge.
Its governor is Kathleen Blanco and its two U.S. senators are John B.
Breaux and Mary Landrieu (all Democrats).

Louisiana
is the only state whose legal system is based on Roman, Spanish, and
French civil law as opposed to British common law. Technically, it is
known as "Civil Law," or the "Civilian System." It is often incorrectly
reffered to as the "Code Napoleon" or The Napoleonic Code. It is important
to note that the Louisiana Civil Code and the French Civil Code, often
reffered to as the Napoleonic Code, came into existence roughly the
same time. Louisiana was
never governed by the Napoleonic Code.

Great differences
still exist between Louisiana Civil Law and the Common Law found in
her 49 sister states. While most of the differences are now found in
verbage, it is important to note that the "Civilian" tradition is still
deeply rooted in all aspects of Louisiana law. Property, contractual,
and family law are still mostly based on traditional Roman legal thinking
and have little in common with English law.

Louisiana
is unique among U.S. states in using a runoff in state, local, and congressional
elections. All candidates run in an open primary on Election Day, in
which multiple candidates from the same party may be on the ballot.
If no candidate has more than 50% of the vote, the two candidates with
the highest vote total compete in a runoff election approximately one
month later. This runoff does not take into account party identification.
Therefore it is common for a Democrat to be in a runoff with a fellow
Democrat or a Republican to be in a runoff with a fellow Republican.
All other states use the First Past the Post electoral system to elect
Senators, Representatives, and statewide officials.

Geography

The Mississippi
River empties out of the southern portion of the state into the Gulf
of Mexico.

Interstate highways

Interstate 10

Interstate 12

Interstate 20

Interstate 49

Interstate 55

Interstate 59

There are proposed
plans to extend Interstate 69 to the Texas/Mexico border, which will
go through north-eastern Louisiana.

United States highways

North-south
routes

East-west
routes

U.S. Highway
11

U.S. Highway
425

U.S. Highway
51

U.S. Highway
61

U.S. Highway
65

U.S. Highway
165

U.S. Highway
167

U.S. Highway
71

U.S. Highway
171

U.S. Highway
371

U.S. Highway
79

U.S. Highway
80

U.S. Highway
84

U.S. Highway
90

U.S. Highway
190

Economy

The total gross
state product in 1999 for Louisiana
was $129 billion, placing it 24th in the nation. Its Per Capita Personal
Income was $23,334, 45th in the nation. The state's principal agricultural
outputs include seafood, cotton, soybeans, cattle, sugarcane, poultry
and eggs, dairy products, and rice. Its industrial outputs include chemical
products, petroleum and coal products, food processing, transportation
equipment, paper products, and tourism.

Demographics

As of 2000, the
state's population was 4,468,976 including nearly 200,000 native French-speakers.

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